Posted
by
Soulskill
on Sunday March 02, 2008 @10:42AM
from the totally-nonsensationalist-headline dept.

superbrose writes "According to MSNBC, thousands of U.S. citizens have wrongfully been declared dead, due to an average of 35 data input errors per day by the Social Security Administration (SSA). Many other agencies rely on the data provided by the SSA, such as the IRS. People who have been wrongfully declared dead face many problems, such as rejection of tax returns, cancellation of health insurance, and closure of bank accounts. The article states, 'Input of an erroneous death entry can lead to benefit termination and result in financial hardship for a beneficiary.' Apparently it is far easier to declare a person's death than it is to correct the mistake. It continues, 'Social Security says an erroneous death record can be removed only when it is presented with proof that the original record was entered in error. The original error must be documented, and the deletion must be approved by a supervisor after "pertinent facts supporting reinstatement" are available in the system.'"

Actually, ID helps in this case. The problem is what happens in a system in a corner room of some govt agency. But if you have an ID, it will be easier for you to prove you are alive - even if its canceled by mistake in a database.

No it won't help! If it did, I could walk in with some dead person's ID I stole and steal their identity.
This is a simple matter of the IRS not giving a damn. Same thing happens if your identity is stolen. It takes an act of God for them to issue you a new social security number.

That's right. Because you'll be able to just print a photo of yourself on sticker stock and paste it over the photo on the ID. It's really that simple, and that's why we've completely given up on using IDs for anything.

I don't know anyone who looks like their passport photo. As long as you're the right gender and have the right skin color, you can probably get away with a surprising number of other differences. Not to mention that a photo is not worth any more than the rigor with which they check it.

Are you fucking serious? I would assume that an official trying to help you re-animate a dead identity would perhaps scrutinize the photo a bit closer than, say, a DHS dolt at a window at the airport processing eight hundred people a day. News flash! Government employees are not all copies of the same model robot with identical programming! They think! They reason! They apply varying degrees of effort depending on the importance of the task!

If we start seeing government employees as human, then we may have to see the government as an organisation of humans, who can think, reason, and prioritise tasks. It's only small leaps from there to thinking the government actually does it's job, and that the system isn't terminally broken, which, of course, leads people to believe that maybe there are other reasons why the government doesn't agree with them on every issue besides corruption. This kind of thinking leads to a positively frightening sense of social responsibility. It's a slippery slope; don't go there.

no shop clerk has ever, ever, actually compared my signature with the one on my card.

Nor are they even vaguely qualified to do so. No two signatires from the same person are exactly the same. Some vary considerably even to the untrained eye. Sufficient analysis to determine the genuinness of a signature will cost more than the value of most transactions. In truth, signatures are pretty much worthless for authentication.

Photos are more useful since the brain has dedicated areas for recognizing faces, b

My picture is of me when I was 15. I'm 26 now. Give me a break on the picture crap. If it's close, people generally don't question it. As for the poster above you, using ID to prove you have the ability to drive is one thing. Using it to bring a person back to life is different. They should, and are, treated differently. I'm not saying it should be hard to prove you're not dead, I'm just saying a single ID should not be the proof.

California ID's require a thumb print and a photo, which are recorded at a central office. If your card does not match what they have on record, then it is a fake. If you don't match what is on record, then you are also a fake.

I would hope that if I was marked as being dead someone could look at my birth certificate, and see that yes I'm about the right age. Then look at my state id, and check the photo and biometric information if available. And I assume a layperson is able to make the judgment that someone is alive when they are physically moving and talking to them.

This is why I hate governments, so much fricken paperwork. My friend was accidentally assigned the same SSN as another person that was born on the same day and had the same name as him. He didn't find out until he had to get a background check for a job and found that the other guy has some felony arrests on his record.

Actually, ID doesn't help.
This guy had a false death certificate [di2.nu] submitted for his name and is still having problems with it. He finally was able to get his accounts unfrozen, his marriage official, and a new ID card, but only after months of calls and visits to UK ID agency. To this day with his son, he still gets letters of "fraud detection" whenever they try to do something that piggy-backs on the ID system.

Google cache [64.233.169.104] as main page isn't currently loading for me.

But if you have an ID, it will be easier for you to prove you are alive - even if its canceled by mistake in a database.

How? If the database says you are dead, when someone scans the barcode it still says you are dead. Even if a government employee sees you appear to be alive and look like th eperson on the card, its going to take paper work and procedure to get that changed because often the people that you talk with (especially at the IRS) are not empowered to do anything of real value in this situation other than fill out a form.

Secondly, I know people who look like nothing like license card. They gained weight, dyed their, had surgery, are sick, etc etc and have grief going into a bar much less deal with the government.

In my country, Portugal, we have a card for Social security, IRS and ID, all diferent numbers and all independent databases, so even if your wrongly declared dead in one of them, doesnt mean all others will be,and its not up to the Government services to declare you as dead.
This year we will be getting an all-in-one card, but we will still have diferent numbers for each public service, our constituiton demands this.

How about having your ID card canceled ON PURPOSE by a government that mistakenly puts you on the "terrorist" watch list, or because you didn't happen to bend over far enough for some beady eyed scumbag bureaucrat.

Europe is an interesting mixture of what in the US would be called left and right. For example, France, which is general considered quite to the left (Sarkozy aside for the moment) requires that a certain fixed percentage of all music played on the radio be in French. So you couldn't have an all Arabic music station. Americans would flip out if something like that was tried in the US because of the constitution.

It's because "Left" changed its meaning between 1910 and 1945; it used to mean what is now libertarianism(/classical liberalism). "Right" changed its meaning later on, probably when religion and neoconservationism got involved in US politics. As such, the old distinction between individualism (Left) and collectivism (Right) got moved around and the left-right spectrum is no longer of any use. Nowadays, "Right" and "Left" are mostly used to affiliate people with various parties (but not ideologies), essentially because certain parts of socialism are very easy to sell to the public.

Straight guys don't have homosexual experiences unless they are gay or at least bi. That's like saying an out gay man has heterosexual experiences. It isn't common and it isn't true to the person's feelings. I guess what I'm trying to say is if Germany is so liberal towards gays and there is no stigma, then why are these "straight" people so scared to come out?

One of the markers of an overly moralistic society is the tendency to absolutes, black and white, right and wrong, gay and straight.

Most people are intrinsically bi, along some kind of spectrum. In north america, at least, both het and gay sides of the fence exert a lot of pressure on people to be one thing or the other, and this causes plenty of grief.

I happen to live in a community where it's easier than just about anywhere for people to switch, and it happens more often than you might imagine. There are many ways to be in the closet, and bi's are pushed there by both sides.

It can be useful if, and only if, the appropriate protections are put in place.

Owing to Germany's history, there exists a keen sense among the populous that making the government too powerful is a bad thing. No such feeling is present among a majority of Americans/British/etc., and the possibility of governmental abuse of an ID card scheme is consequently real.

To paraphrase the old saw, 'The price of freedom is eternally fumbling for utility bills'.

Owing to Germany's history, there exists a keen sense among the populous that making the government too powerful is a bad thing. No such feeling is present among a majority of Americans/British/etc., and the possibility of governmental abuse of an ID card scheme is consequently real.

Have you ever actually read the constitution? It borders on paranoid as to the extent to which it goes to ensure that the government doesn't become too powerful. America's worst infractions have been a result of directly and blatantly violating the constitution.

We're not that different from France in that regard. There was quite a bit of ideological spillover between the drafting of the constitution and the French Revolution.

The UK is an interesting case, because, for the most part, the British governme

Have you ever actually read the constitution? It borders on paranoid as to the extent to which it goes to ensure that the government doesn't become too powerful. America's worst infractions have been a result of directly and blatantly violating the constitution.

I think, the GP's point was, Americans today don't care as much — we don't share the Founders' paranoia. Probably, because we have not seen the problem firsthand in too many generations — thanks, no doubt, to the Constitution.

The First Amendment itself is getting chipped away — you can't fake e-mail headers [wired.com] (there goes the anonymous speech, deemed precious on this very forum every time some asshole tries to get away breaking copyrights), and you can't be helping a political candidate [washingtonpost.com] too much.

But Americans welcome these laws, because they seem to address an acute problem (spam, lobbyists with too much freedom of speech, etc.). We clearly lost most of that paranoia of 200 years ago... Don't even get me started on the Second Amendment...

It may be too late. They probably hired someone else instead, and didn't even tell you why you didn't get the job (because they think you died??). Seems to me that if they are doing verification on your SSN, it should show up why your number is invalid (like because you're dead). In that case, it would seem that they might just check up, since they recently interviewed you, to see if there was some mistake in the verification.

I think that the most relevant scenario is where you're one of a half dozen 'good' candidates where they're bothering to perform more extensive checks. You're still at the stage where any little thing can cost you the job(though it's still not guarenteed).Still, showing up dead is less scary than the private investigation company I've heard about - they work a lot like the credit institutions, but for more general background information. Previous addresses, criminal records, even travel sometimes.

This reminds me of the problems with employers running criminal background checks on all applicants. I've known people personally who were denied offers because a record popped up in the search when they submitted a name to a background check agency. The record that popped up was, of course, someone who matched in name only; race, age, maiden name, and everything else didn't at all match. The location where it happened was over 2000 miles from their residence at

A lesser problem, but still a problem is when you talk about a person that has changed sexes, either by dress or surgery, and it still shows them as the 'other' at the federal level.Walk in as a female to an interview and get the offer pending a 'background check', but your records says you are male, not only wont you get the job, but you may get a visit by the FBI thinking you have stolen someone's ID.

Even marriage and a simple last name change can stick it to you if you don't have all your records in sync

due to an average of 35 data input errors per day by the Social Security Administration (SSA)... deletion must be approved by a supervisor after "pertinent facts supporting reinstatement" are available in the system.'"

Wouldn't the "pertinent facts" be easily established by looking at the incoming documentation saying "Jane Smith, Age 83, SSN XXX-XX-1234 died on 1/1/08" and noticing that "Billy McAnyone, Age 30, XXX-XX-1243" is the one you killed? I mean we're talking about clerical errors within the SSA so their own documentation won't match- how hard is this to (god forbid) detect on their own, none the less validate after the living-dead point out the problem?

The "Proof" to correct an error like this always takes more information than was used to screw it up in the first place. I work for the federal government and use a Voyager credit card to purchase gasoline and vehicle services. I bought 3 quarts of ATF and the clerk at the station rang it up as a food sale, but for the correct amount. Both myself and my supervisor had to fill out and sign paperwork stating that the statement was in error and that ATF was purchased, not food. A wasted 15 minutes for both of

Wouldn't the "pertinent facts" be easily established by looking at the incoming documentation saying "Jane Smith, Age 83, SSN XXX-XX-1234 died on 1/1/08" and noticing that "Billy McAnyone, Age 30, XXX-XX-1243" is the one you killed?

That would actually require that someone analyze the results and make a judgment call. The SSA doesn't hire data entry operators that can make those decisions.

The solution is the same as what was used years ago in the punch card era: every input is performed twice. After the first data entry operator entered the data on a set of punch cards, the deck of cards went to a second operator who would duplicate the data entry in "verify" mode. Any discrepancies would sound a buzzer, and the second operator would have to stop and re-enter the data or create a new card with the correction.

Today, it wouldn't be difficult to simply assign the data to two different data entry operators and then compare the results -- flagging any differences for review.

However, that won't solve the problem of incorrect incoming data. Requiring input (and verification) of additional details like name, age, etc. would allow those to be validated against existing records, spitting out exceptions for review.

to make reality conform to the records. Purely as an administrative procedure you see. Off the record of course, but much quicker than setting about altering the records.

After all... we can't have inaccurate records now, can we? That would be the road to chaos! And think of the savings. We wouldn't have to go on record recording changes to the records, and who benefit from such a record?

Why not set up an adminstrative comittee suitably empowered to, and responsible for, maintaining the integrity of the records? How about that? It would solve this little problem in record time!

what happens if a person makes a mistake filling out the paperwork declaring that they are, in fact, alive?will the clerk sitting behind the desk hand the papers back to you, stating that you have not given sufficient proof that you are alive.

at that point, i would likely flip out and start eating brains.Not her brain, mind you, because if she fails to realize that standing in front of her kinda proves that I am alive; thats not a brain worth eating.

This is the most effective way to live "off the grid!" No more taxes, etc.

Think of the legal implications.

Its against the law to "mistreat" a dead body. So, no death penalty for someone declared dead. Also, since you're dead, they can't stick you in a jail cell (the state won't to pay to jail a dead person, and other detainees would have a good complaint, cruel and unusual punishment and all that). Heck, they can't even put the cuffs on you without running afoul of the requirement to treat a dead body with all due respect and dignity.... someone should take this and really run with it.

Of course, there's the downside. No more sex, since necrophilia is also against the law...

Another example: Some states have a long history of dead people voting. For many, its a family tradition. "Take away my right to vote? Over my dead body! My dead grandpa voted ___ and so did my dead father, and so will I!"

The original error must be documented, and the deletion must be approved by a supervisor after "pertinent facts supporting reinstatement" are available in the system.

I guess the supposedely deceased being present when the request for reinstatement is handed in won't count as a "pertinent fact" until he has been stabbed with a wooden stake and shot with a silver bullet?

I live in a two family house. I moved from the first floor to the second floor. In the phone junction box, I just swapped the wires. I figured no problem. I called the phone company to tell them what I did (In the form of "I was about to do") and they said, no you can't do that. They have to send a technician to the pole in front of the house to change the wires and change their computer records, of course, there was a service fee involved.

I was pissed off, then it occurred to me, I called the phone company again to say that they had made a mistake and the phone lines had been wrongly addressed and would they please update the computer records for 911 service. The answer was O.K. Mr....

Moral of the story, a "mistake" is easily corrected when it isn't merely "you," but another bureaucracy that has an importance. In the case of the phone records, it was 911 service. Screw that up, and there is civil liability involved. In the case of the SSI, I bet they'd adjust those records quickly if you said you were having problems paying your income tax and should you just refer the IRS to them?

Social Security says an erroneous death record can be removed only when it is presented with proof that the original record was entered in error.

"Uh, hello? I'm here. I'm alive. What more proof do you need?"
"You have to prove that the record was entered in error, sir."
"You mean I have to find the data entry clerk and get a notarized statement that he didn't mean to mark me as dead? What if he meant to do it, because he's become mad with power?"
"Then you're dead, sir."
"If I'm dead, why are you still calling me 'sir?'"
"It's in the handbook: 'All male customers must be addressed as sir, regardless of age, national origin, ethnicity, or disability.' I think being dead would qualify as a disability. Anyway, it's not worth losing my job over. Next in line!"

Call your insurance company and let them know that, according to the SSA, *you* have died and would like to collect your insurance money. I'm sure they would be happy to sort things out with the SSA instead of paying you:).

I think that it is a good thing that it is easier to declare someone dead than undead. Firstly, people die more often than they come back to life so it is a much more common thing to need to do.

Secondly, in this day and age of identity theft, you don't want to make it too convenient for someone to turn up claiming to be a person that everyone thought was dead. We aren't living in a soap opera, you know!

This is a bigger problem than the post alludes to. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) put in to effect a new rule, called the "No-Match Rule" which requires an employer to terminate an employee when receiving a letter from the DHS or the Social Security Administration (SSA), that the new employee in question doesn't exist in the SSA database. There is a period of 90 days in which to contest the no-match rule but if you're not on top of things, your employer has to fire you.

Right now there is a stay on that rule ordered by a district court in California, but it goes to show you some small error can have big consequences. See AFL-CIO v. Chertoff, No. 07-4472 (N.D. Cal filed Aug. 29, 2007. Apparently the DHS is looking into revising the rule.

Wouldn't 99% of this problem - and many others - go away with a simple check digit on the SSN?
Other countries (e.g. Canada) do it. Sure, it would be a bunch of work to issue everyone with a new 10-digit (or 12-digit) SSN, but the process would help to stem the current wave of identity theft. You could even sell the idea to republicans by pointing out that illegals here working with a forged SSN wouldn't get a new one.

Wouldn't 99% of this problem - and many others - go away with a simple check digit on the SSN? Other countries (e.g. Canada) do it. Sure, it would be a bunch of work to issue everyone with a new 10-digit (or 12-digit) SSN, but the process would help to stem the current wave of identity theft.

The check digit algorithm would hardly remain secret for long. The basis of the problem is misuse of the identifier, rather than its format. i.e. if all anyone could do with your SSN was contribute to your pension/pay

It would stop clerical errors, though. If it wasn't possible to accidentally declare the wrong person dead without MUCH work (proportionally growing with the number of checksums - the German ID number uses no less than five checksums, for example) less people would end up complaining about losing their identity and for the rare cases that do happen, lots of red tape would make sense. It would be harder to obtain someone else's identity by complaining about the number.

Stuff like this never really makes an impact until somebody important gets hit. I remember one reporter sent a copy of the Minister of Privacy's phone records to her, just to show her how easily you could get ahold of somebody's supposedly private phone records, for just a small fee.

The thing is, Obama - through sheer audacity of hope and lefty rhetoric - actually can bring the dead back to life. Also, college girls actually faint when he talks. Now that's qualifications for being Commander in Chief, no matter how extensive is your opponent's collection of Pentagon-briefing-ready pantsuits.

Well, you got that part right, anyway. Because a whole of people get warm and fuzzy looking at him, romanticizing what they hope he is, and all he does is deliver vague platitudes with a nice, poetic cadence. He's a blank canvas on which people are projecting their personal wishses, and he's more than happy to take that and run with it. The level of delusion and naivete in his concert-style shows is really remarkable.

What about the article a few months back talking about how the man in India (I believe) who was declared dead 30 years ago by his family in order to reap financial benefits. I tried searching for the thread, but couldn't find it. I'm sure many people in that thread made claims about this never happening in a "modern" country like the US.

How are we in these United States different when compared to the so called "third world" countries - specifically relating to issues like these?

My guess is in many of the "third world" countries you'll be expected to bribe officials to correct an error like this. Of course, you could also probably bribe someone to list your enemy as dead as well.

Is that better? I guess it is if you're someone with a lot of money to throw around at bribes it is.

35 errors per day is actually a pretty significant error rate. There are about (8.26 / 1000 / year * 301,139,947 [cia.gov] * 1 day) = 6810 deaths per day in the US, so they are entering or receiving about one out of every 200 records incorrectly. This means that about ((35 / day) / 301,139,947 * 77.8 year [cdc.gov]) =.0033 or one in every three hundred people will be incorrectly marked dead during their lifetime if this error rate continues.

Close, but not quite. Adding more digits just means more places to make a mistake.

The solution is not more digits, but to make social security numbers, nay ALL identifying numbers, self checksumming.

For example when you're shopping online the credit processing system knows immediately when you enter an invalid number because credit card numbers have a check digit (http://www.beachnet.com/~hstiles/cardtype.html). In this instance it seems that miskeying SSNs is a significant part of the problem, having a checksummed number greatly reduces this.

Another aspect is that everyone uses SSNs as identifying numbers. This is bad because, for example, the IRS can only be responsible for data entry faults in its own organization and not those made at the Social Security Administration. Its like Comcast using my Verizon customer number*. You can prevent this to some extent by registering for a taxpayer number to use with the IRS instead of your SSN. Refusing to give your SSN to agencies that request it (when practical) could also help.

*An apt analogy I think, comparing the dinosaurs of inept big government to the dinosaurs of big telecommunications.

In Canada, we use a Social Insurance Number rather than an SSN. It's 9 digits, and the 9th digit is in fact a checksum digit. I'm kind of surprised that the US didn't go with more digits back in the early days of computerization - the early 70s in the case of this stuff. Then they would have had a checksum digit also. I have coded payroll systems in tha past, and you would be surprised at how often the Canadian SIN is mistyped and caught by checksum. I've seen the error counts.

I'm kind of surprised that the US didn't go with more digits back in the early days of computerization - the early 70s in the case of this stuff.

You have to understand the history of the SSN. It was never intended to be a personal identity number (beyond, of course, the application of the Social Security), but once the federal government started using it as a taxpayer and military ID number it became the de facto standard. The Social Security Administration has always been quite adamant that it is not a general ID number, and that if it is requested, you should demand to know which law requires its use. This is great in principle, but unless of cou

The solution is not more digits, but to make social security numbers, nay ALL identifying numbers, self checksumming.

SSNs aren't even checksummed? Holy shit, that's pretty primitive for a number that can ruin a person's life if entered incorrectly.

The German ID card, for example, has a 26-character alphanumeric string that features no less than four checksums:
The first nine digits contain information about your main domicile and a serial number. The tenth digit is the checksum for them. The block ends with a single character identifying your citizenship (AFAIK it's always "D").
The next seven digits are your date of birth in the format YYMMDD and a checksum for the DOB.
The next seven digits are the expiration date for the ID card in the same format and a checksum for them.
The last digit is a checksum for all preceding digits.

That way a simple error is likely to be noticed and the software could even tell you which part was entered incorrectly.

The problem lies not with "alive" but rather with "you". How do you convince them that you are indeed the person declared dead and not, in fact, someone else who wants to take over the identity of the deceased?

Of course, the sensible approach would be to check the records upon complaint and verify that everything was indeed entered correctly. But since we're talking beaurocracy here they'll only do that if the complaint comes from the "deceased" themself because they can't go around correcting mistakes, a